@article{jbp:/content/journals/10.1075/bjl.22.06gun, author = "Gunlogson, Christine", title = "A question of commitment", journal= "Belgian Journal of Linguistics", year = "2008", volume = "22", number = "1", pages = "101-136", doi = "https://doi.org/10.1075/bjl.22.06gun", url = "https://www.jbe-platform.com/content/journals/10.1075/bjl.22.06gun", publisher = "John Benjamins", issn = "0774-5141", type = "Journal Article", abstract = "This paper addresses certain restrictions on the use of declaratives as questions in English. Declaratives are taken to express commitment by the speaker, even in a questioning use. The analysis traces the restrictions to two distinct contextual factors: (i) a general principle requiring that a commitment have a recognized source, i.e., a discourse agent who plausibly has independent evidence supporting the content committed to; (ii) specific to a questioning interpretation, the need for the context to support the inference that the speaker’s commitment depends upon the addressee’s anticipated confirmation. Rising intonation contributes a very general element of meaning, indicating that the utterance it marks is contingent upon some discourse condition obtaining; the specific conditions required for a questioning interpretation instantiate one such type of contingency. The proposals are modeled via elaboration of standard contextual structures in a possible-worlds framework.", }